Government fights EFF wiretap lawsuit

The US government has asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed against …

In early April, the advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a class-action lawsuit against telecommunications behemoth AT&T, alleging that the company has actively aided the US government's covert surveillance program carried on by the National Security Agency. In a "Statement of Interest" filed with the US District Court of Northern California, the Department of Justice is requesting that the judge throw out the lawsuit because of what the government describes as a high possibility of classified information being made public.

In its filing, the DoJ said that the current administration would "assert the military and state secrets privilege" in its attempt to have the case thrown out of court. It also said that filing should not be interpreted as affirming or denying the allegations made by the EFF. In addition, AT&T also filed two separate motions seeking dismissal of the case.

Although the government is not a party to the lawsuit, it is apparently concerned that the litigation could shed unwelcome light on its surveillance practices, especially those carried out on US citizens. Most of the evidence in the lawsuit is being held under seal, as AT&T says that it contains detailed information related to "the technical structure of the AT&T telephone networks," the disclosure of which would jeopardize its business.

The EFF claims that beginning a few years ago, AT&T's predecessors began giving the government unfettered access to its key telecommunications facilities, allowing the NSA to access the company's databases, including a 300TB database of caller information. That, the EFF says, is a violation of AT&T customers' privacy as well as US law.

Playing the "state secrets" card is by no means an unexpected move on the part of the government. An article published in today's Chicago Tribune points out that the Bush administration has increased the number of documents classified as either "top secret," "secret," or "confidential" to levels previously unseen in any previous administration while relabelling previously public information as classified. It is also consistent with the administration's determination to thwart attempts at oversight of its intelligence-gathering practices.

By going after AT&T and not the government, the EFF is taking a back-door approach to the question of the wiretap program's legality. Instead, the intent is to use this suit to shine the spotlight on the inner workings of the telecommunications company's efforts to accommodate the government. In doing so, it hopes to answer the question of whether AT&T violated the law by giving the government access to its network and database.